This invention seeks to solve the problem of providing a very inexpensive packaging device for containing a very inexpensive product such as BB shot, the package also providing a dispensing filler tube intended to obviate the common practice among children of placing BB shot in their mouths and filling the magazine of an air rifle by pressing their lips against it and expelling the BBs thereinto.
The prior art shows a number of different containing and dispensing devices for small objects such as BB shot, pills, etc. U.S. Pat. No. 2,515,378 to Nicolle shows a small flat package for containing non-circular cross-section pills or tablets and for dispensing them one at a time through an opening while collimating a row of pills to be thus dispensed using longitudinal ribs in the package for aligning the pills. This device dispenses essentially one pill at a time rather than a large number of pills, and this fact is in opposition to the extent of the present dispensing filler tube which dispenses a number of BBs comprising a "full load" of shot.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,955,559 to Narrow, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,263,664 in which the applicants are the inventors, show BB shot dispensing containers having tubes for dispensing the shot, U.S. Pat. No. 1,955,559 having a tube which is squeezed in order to enlarge its opening to permit the shot to pass through. However, it has been the experience of the applicants who manufacture such containers that there is a serious problem of bridging of the BB shot at the entrance of the tube which tends to interrupt the flow of BB shot into the gun before the magazine of the gun has been filled. This requires shaking of the container while filling the rifle, which often results in loss of BB shot when the end of the filler tube pops out of the gun magazine accidentally.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,513 to Ram shows another pill dispenser in which a portion of the dispenser is squeezed in order to drop a pill therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,456,159 to Tratsch shows tubes containing BB shot wherein the end of the tube is annularly restricted sufficiently to prevent the BBs from dropping accidentally from the tube, this type of cartridge being used with a specially built gun in which it is inserted. However, manual squeezing of this cartridge tube will not dispense BB shot in the manner intended in the present invention.